I try and stay interested and respond to what he's saying...behind the door when I'm trying to pee first thing in the morning...or over the grrrr of the wagon wheels as we walk to school. He catches me sometimes as I "Uh-huh, yes, uh-huh" my way throughout our day, when I've let my mind wander. But he doesn't mind.

It was over two years ago that I picked this card up in a local shop. I must admit I go into this hip store to look around most of the time...hoping some of the coolness might just rub off on me. I can't always purchase but I can appreciate.

I just loved the picture on this card. I wanted pictures like this. I wanted to preserve the s w e e t n e s s that was my children at that moment. Because it is really hard to capture sometimes...it is easy to focus on the things that are exhausting and difficult instead of the things that give you so much joy that you think your heart will burst. I knew that I would one day look back at this time of my life and it would be the most lovely.

I tucked this card in my wallet. I had recently had professional pictures taken...there was some posing...and some props...and an uncooperative 2 year old. I wasn't exactly thrilled. But I could NOT afford to do it again...at least not anytime soon.

I would pull the card out occasionally...to look at the picture...and to be certain that I still had it. I wanted to be sure that when I was able I would remember Amy.

And I did.

Yup...that's me...the one with the bursting heart.

Amy writes a blog too...where you can find her beautiful pictures and just as lovely prose.

I usually wait until the children are asleep...or before they wake up to do this blog thing. But oh my goodness they are playing...so nicely....TOGETHER. They just asked me for a bone...or was it a phone...there is an old cell phone in the middle of the hallway that they aren't charging at so I'm thinking it was a bone....

Ok..found the bone. For the stuffy dogs. And they are back playing.

My bedroom has a new bed. Well, actually it's a new mattress, and since I won't be getting a bed frame any time soon, lets just call it a bed. This makes me very happy. Kevin and I, and on occasion one or two children, have been sleeping on a not so comfortable Queen size mattress for over 11 years. Don't get me wrong, I was grateful for the mattress, it was given to us by his generous brother and his wife about the time we were married. It saved us from sharing a Double. But for the last couple of years my love affair with that mattress has been over. Hello King...

Here's a shot of the bedroom with the old bed....

Kevin bought that bed frame for me for my birthday. We were just married and I had seen it at a local shop, it wasn't that expensive but I still didn't think we could afford it. He surprised me with it. That bed is now in the extra bedroom, what was the craft room, and is now the cra-mped room.

I'm excited to update the bedroom...a little more hotel...and a little less Little House. Here's some of my inspiration...

Photos above styled by Wendy Williams Watt

Photo above Canadian House & Home

One thing that is definitely going is the sweet pink light that I have ignored since we moved in...it would be lovely in a little girls bedroom...

I'm in a mood. I was supposed to spend this morning...or at least this afternoon....with a cup of tea and the computer and no one else. Kevin had to work from home today which meant that I wouldn't have the morning or the afternoon with my tea and time. So I've finally sat down with a big pot of Rooibos...after a long day of looking after the house, the kids, the husband...sigh...and then Kevin walks in to tell me something about the "Bachelor". I lost it.

Was it really just a week ago that I was in NYC...because it seems like forever...

We spent the rest of our trip in SOHO, Greenwich Village, and Tribeca...mostly SOHO...because I LOVED it...

I went to not one but TWO Anthropologie stores...and Kevin didn't complain.

I found a cupcake shop that looked really sweet...but sadly it wasn't open....

Needing to get out of the cold, we popped into this place, Sweet Revenge

and had a chocolate and salted caramel cupcake that was OUT OF THIS WORLD

and so we went back the next day.

Kevin...your wife is sorry for her irrational reaction to your Bachelor interruption...you took her on the most amazing, delicious, loving little va-cay...and she is very grateful. Please forgive me xoxo

We were upgraded...don't you just love upgrades...to the King Suite. I put this up as soon as we got there. Charlotte handed it to me as we left my parents house on New Years Eve...

Kevin showed me Rockefeller Plaza, Times Square and then we stumbled on Gordon Ramsey's London for a delicious late lunch...

I even managed to drag Kevin to an off Broadway production of The Understudy...so funny, with Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Justin Kirk & Julie White. I loved it...and at only 90 minutes and with no intermission , I think Kevin might have too, just a bit...

I have always loved the big city. As a girl I would hop on a bus with my girlfriend and we would go into Toronto for the day. I would get giddy as the bus wound its way toward downtown along the Gardiner. We would pass run down row houses, where I imagined Booky lived, The Boulevard Club and the CNE. Our moms would tell us to head straight across from the bus station to the Eaton Centre where we were supposed to stay the day until we returned home later that afternoon. Unbeknownst to our parents, we would head for the subway and travel north to Bloor Street. We would wander around Yorkville, picking out our RL buttondowns or Beaver Canoe sweatshirts that we (more like I) had saved months for. I loved the adventure, the grittiness of the subway, the historical buildings, the old bus station.

In the same way I have been drawn to NYC but it has always eluded me. Kevin has travelled there at least 5 times in the past two years on business and each time I hope to join him...but no.

I have a very special husband. He is funny and brilliant and overwhelmingly generous in spirit. He doesn't cut the grass, or take out the garbage, or shovel the driveway. There isn't always gas in the car when I get in it in the morning and goodness knows I am the one cleaning the snow off its roof. Not that he wants me to do these things either...he doesn't...and if we had all the money in the world I know he would pay someone else to do them. If I didn't do it...it just wouldn't get done...at least not for a long time. But he loves me and that I am sure. And its not because he took me to a swank hotel in NYC...which he did do on New Years Day. It was in the way he looked at me as I discovered New York, how happy I was to be there with him, how happy he was to make me happy. And that he did.